One Brisbane-based priest, who is the only qualified exorcist in the whole of Queensland, told Australia's Sunday Mail that he has seen a shocking rise in demonic possessions along the Gold Coast:

"Being possessed by a demon is terrifying in one's mental and emotional life. Some of these manifestations are extremely powerful, causing people to be plagued by disturbances. They hear voices and see hideous creatures in their sleep. There has been a recruitment of pagan practices, and it's sheer poison. The Gold Coast is not good at all. I do far more exorcisms there than Brisbane."

The Church has now vowed to "fight the devil head-on" by training hundreds of new exorcists. Father Gabriele Amorth, 82, the Pope's Exorcist-in-Chief, recently announced a new initiative to ensure every Catholic diocese has a group of trained exorcists, saying: "Too many bishops are not taking this seriously and are not delegating their priests in the fight against the devil. You have to hunt high and low for a proper, trained exorcist."

As for the Brisbane priest, who asked the Sunday Mail not to name him for "fear of reprisals", he remains troubled by the threat of possession: "We are not very plentiful and certainly need more of us to cope with the big occult following that is emerging today. It's frightening what can happen when you invite entities into your life which are not meant to be part of God's world."

He provided the newspaper with one example of someone carelessly inviting these entities into their life: "He said one woman he had met had been plagued by demonic manifestations since taking part in a playground witch game as a child."

Crazy as this seems, it appears that this is not that unusual for the Catholic church see: exorcism .Also from wikipedia:

"According to a New York Post article of 19 February 2002, John Paul II personally performed three exorcisms during his tenure as pope. The first exorcism was performed on a woman in 1982. His second was in September 2000 when he performed the rite on a 19-year-old woman who had become enraged in St Peter's Square. A year later, in September 2001, he performed an exorcism on a 20-year-old woman."

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